What I learned from this thread: Some people think immersion is impossible, so don't even attempt it. "Spoon feed me" they cry. Losing genres to these masses who don't want to learn new mechanics, or put creative effort into their playing. Game publishers really only care about these players too, changing long existing series into bland [censored] for them.

For me it's all about the story. The gameplay could be meh at best, but if there's a good story. I'm all in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJCEQaSlvHE's a video from Extra Credits that somewhat relates to this topic... enjoy

I respectfully disagree. Old Fallout games were the pinnacle of telling: "You see Zed. Zed's dead." etc. All those isometric games have to be very heavy in descriptions, a good recent example is Pillars of Eternity. I always have the "I'm playing a game" feeling, no matter how good the world, characters or mechanics are done. Old Fallout games are all brilliant and they are at the top of my all-time favorites, yet I wouldn't call any of them immersive.

I don't think immersion is necessarily thinking of the character as yourself. It's more like walking a mile in someone else's shoes. Making the decisions they would make and doing the things they would do. Staying in the role of the character you build. Stopping to ask yourself, would my character do that?

And, to me immersion is just being so into the game I'm playing that if I drop my sword on the ground in game, I may just end up bending over to pick it up off the floor in real life only to realize it's in the game. LOL Immersion is when I loose track of what is happening around me because all of my focus has been given the game. I personally don't imagine I'm in the game but in some ways I am.

I like to become one with my character while knowing that my character is merely a fictional being that I built just like the fictional character I might write about in a book.